Inventory of greenhouse gas emissions and removals in Kaluga region

Problem: Basing local climate action plans on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories has become standard practice for communities that want to address the problem of climate change. Communities use GHG emissions inventories to develop policy despite the fact that there has been little theoretical work on the implications of the assumptions embedded within them. Purpose: We identify elements and assumptions in emissions inventories that have important policy implications for climate action plan formulation, aiming to help planners make informed, defensible choices, and to refine future GHG emissions inventory protocols and climate action planning methods. Methods: We conducted a content analysis of 30 city climate action plans selected as a stratified random sample. We collected data on 70 different factors and used summary and trend statements, typologies, and descriptive statistics to link our findings to our research questions. Results and conclusions: Climate action plans obviously vary in many details, but most contain all of the core GHG emissions elements suggested in common protocols. We found GHG emissions inventories to be technically accurate but found their reduction targets to fall short of international targets. We also found exogenous change and uncertainty to be unaccounted for in emissions forecasts and reduction targets. The plans generally do a poor job of linking mitigation actions to reduction targets. Takeaway for practice: GHG emissions inventories supporting climate action planning are reasonably standardized, but documentation of data and assumptions should be improved and GHG reduction targets should be justified. The effect of future changes that are beyond the direct control of the community plan should be accounted for in GHG emissions forecasts and reduction targets. Rapid anticipated population growth should be acknowledged and taken into account, both in GHG emissions forecasts and in setting reduction targets. Effects of mitigation may be difficult to predict reliably, yet can be partly offset by effective monitoring that evaluates progress and changes course when necessary. Research support: None.

Implementing city-level carbon accounting: A comparison between Madrid and London

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventories, which currently inform abatement policy discussions, are developed mostly from national scale data. Nevertheless, although the policy debate tends to take place in global and national arenas, action to abate GHG emissions is inherently within the provenance of local institutions and communities. The purpose of this paper is to examine how much information is lost by not estimating GHG emissions data at scales finer than the whole US. Such information may be critical in bridging global and local policy. Differences in the composition of GHG emission sources based on GHG emission inventories at three nested spatial scales (national, state, local) for four study sites (in Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania) are analysed, drawing upon initial results of a large collaborative study known as the ‘Association of American Geographers‐Global Change in Local Places (GCLP)’ project. The concept of spatial sovereignty of emissions is developed to test the cross‐scale reliability of emission inventories. For the test year 1990, close agreement is found in the by‐gas composition of GHG emissions among national, state and local inventories. Spatial sovereignty in this case is maintained. However close agreement is not found in the by‐source composition of GHG emissions among national, state and local inventories. Spatial sovereignty in this case is not maintained. Regular compilation of state and local emissions source inventories may be necessary to track important spatial and temporal deviations from national trends.

As a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United States has reported an economy-wide inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals since the mid-1990s (U.S. EPA 2021). Forest land, harvested wood products (HWP), woodlands, and urban trees within the land sector collectively represent the largest net carbon (C) sink in the United States, offsetting more than 11 percent of total GHG emissions in 2019 (U.S. EPA 2021). Estimates of GHG emissions and removals are compiled by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service researchers and are based primarily on National Forest Inventory (NFI) data collected and maintained by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program within the Forest Service. This report provides an overview of the status and trends of GHG emissions and removals from forest land, woodlands in the grassland category, HWP, and urban trees in settlements in the United States from 1990 to 2019. The estimates for the United States summarized here are based on the compilation reported in the

As a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United States has been reporting an economy-wide Inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals since the mid-1990s (US EPA 2020). Forest land, harvested wood products (HWPs), and urban trees within the land sector collectively represent the largest net carbon (C) sink in the United States, offsetting more than 11 percent of total GHG emissions annually (US EPA 2020). Estimates of GHG emissions and removals are compiled by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service researchers and are based primarily on National Forest Inventory (NFI) data collected and maintained by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program within the USDA Forest Service. This report--the second in a new series of annual updates--provides an overview of the status and trends of GHG emissions and removals from forest land, woodlands in the grassland category, HWPs, and urban trees in settlements in the United States from 1990 to 2018. The estimates for the United States summarized here are based on the compilation reported in the Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry chapter of the US EPA (2020) submission to the UNFCCC. New in this report, most of the national scale estimates are also reported by individual U.S. state (Fig. 1) and are available online for the entire 1990-2018 time series (see appendix).

An inventory of greenhouse gas emissions and removals was compiled for Mongolia, generally using the methods set forth in the IPCC Guidelines. The inventory included emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, oxides of nitrogen, and carbon monoxide for the year 1990. Removals of carbon dioxide by forests were also calculated. A variety of anthropogenic activities resulted in greenhouse gas emissions and removals, including the consumption and production of energy; agricultural activities such as raising livestock; land-use changes from forestry, grassland conversion, and other actions that alter the land; industrial processes such as cement production; and solid and liquid waste generation. Emissions in 1990 were estimated to be 23.1 Tg CO2, 0.3 Tg CH4, 0.040 Gg N20, 0.90 Gg NOx, and 83.3 Gg CO. By far the largest source of emissions is the energy sector, accounting for about 53.3% of total reported emissions. Natural and planted forests removed 11.3 Tg CO2, resulting in a net emission of 11.8 Tg CO2. On a per capita basis, greenhouse gas emissions in Mongolia are high relative to other countries in the region and higher than the global average.

Development of city-scale air pollutants and greenhouse gases emission inventory and mitigation strategies assessment: A case in Zhengzhou, Central China

This paper compares the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission inventories of Madrid and Salvador and discusses some implications for future researches, focusing on city-level carbon accounting (CLCA) of emissions from urban supply chains (USC) and final consumers. To carry out this study, secondary data were collected from official documents of municipal governments of these two cities. According to the results, there are differences in stationary energy GHG emissions due to the big distinction concerning electricity emission factors used by each city. Air transportation GHG emissions are also very different. These two cities share some common figures regarding road transportation and per capita waste sector GHG emissions. In the conclusion section, we discuss opportunities for improvement of the cities’ GHG emission inventories as well as some implications for policy-making and future researches on carbon accounting, with focus on an integrated production-consumption system.

GHG (Greenhouse Gases) emission inventory and mitigation measures for public district heating plants in the Republic of Serbia

This paper addresses the problem of learning in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventories understood as reductions in uncertainty, i.e., inaccuracy and/or imprecision, over time. We analyze the National Inventory Reports (NIRs) submitted annually to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Each NIR contains data on the GHG emissions in a given country for a given year as well as revisions of past years’ estimates. We arrange the revisions, i.e., estimates of historical emissions published in consecutive NIRs into a table, so that each column contains revised estimates of emissions for the same year, reflecting different realizations of uncertainty. We propose two variants of a two-step procedure to investigate the changes of uncertainty over time. In step 1, we assess changes in inaccuracy, which we consider constant within each revision, by either detrending the revisions using the smoothing spline fitted to the most recent revision (method 1) or by taking differences between the most recent revision and the previous ones (method 2). Step 2 estimates the imprecision by analyzing the columns of the data table. We assess learning by detecting and modeling a decreasing trend in inaccuracy and/or imprecision. We analyze carbon dioxide (CO2) emission inventories for the European Union (EU-15) as a whole and its individual member countries. Our findings indicate that although there is still room for improvement, continued efforts to improve accounting methodology lead to a reduction of uncertainty of emission estimates reported in NIRs, which is of key importance for monitoring the realization of countries’ emission reduction commitments.

Our study is a preparatory exercise. We focus on the analysis of uncertainty in greenhouse gas emission inventories. Inventory uncertainty is monitored, but not regulated, under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Under the Convention, countries publish annual or periodic national inventories of greenhouse gas emissions and removals. Policymakers use these inventories to develop strategies and policies for emission reductions and to track the progress of these policies. However, greenhouse gas inventories contain uncertainty for a variety of reasons, and these uncertainties have important scientific and policy implications. For most countries, the emission changes agreed under the Protocol are of the same order of magnitude as the uncertainty that underlies their combined (carbon dioxide equivalent) emissions estimates. Here we apply and compare six available techniques to analyze the uncertainty in the emission changes that countries agreed to realize by the end of the Protocol’s first commitment period 2008–2012. Any such technique, if implemented, could “make or break” claims of compliance, especially in cases where countries claim fulfillment of their commitments to reduce or limit emissions. The techniques all perform differently and can thus have a different impact on the design and execution of emission control policies. A thorough comparison of the techniques has not yet been made but is needed when expanding the discussion on how to go about dealing with uncertainty under the Kyoto Protocol and its successor.

Our study is a preparatory exercise. We focus on the analysis of uncertainty in greenhouse gas emission inventories. Inventory uncertainty is monitored, but not regulated, under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Under the Convention, countries publish annual or periodic national inventories of greenhouse gas emissions and removals. Policymakers use these inventories to develop strategies and policies for emission reductions and to track the progress of these policies. However, greenhouse gas inventories contain uncertainty for a variety of reasons, and these uncertainties have important scientific and policy implications. For most countries, the emission changes agreed under the Protocol are of the same order of magnitude as the uncertainty that underlies their combined (carbon dioxide equivalent) emissions estimates. Here we apply and compare six available techniques to analyze the uncertainty in the emission changes that countries agreed to realize by the end of the Protocol’s first commitment period 2008–2012. Any such technique, if implemented, could “make or break” claims of compliance, especially in cases where countries claim fulfillment of their commitments to reduce or limit emissions. The techniques all perform differently and can thus have a different impact on the design and execution of emission control policies. A thorough comparison of the techniques has not yet been made but is needed when expanding the discussion on how to go about dealing with uncertainty under the Kyoto Protocol and its successor.KeywordsEmission ReductionRelative UncertaintyKyoto ProtocolEmission LimitationEmission ChangeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Description ChevronTexaco believes that global climate change is an important issue and is taking action to address it in a comprehensive way. We recently made publicly available our corporate-wide system for estimating greenhouse gas emissions and energy utilization. This paper specifically focuses on the advantages of using a systematic, auditable energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) management system in a mature oilfield. Material in this paper is based on our experience in using Chevron Texaco's SANGEATM Emissions Estimating System at upstream locations in the North Sea and worldwide. Results, Observations and Conclusions A credible, systematic approach, such as the SANGEATM Emissions Estimating System, provides strategic value to mature fields that are facing increasing constraints on greenhouse gas emissions and increasing energy costs. By having a rigorous and verifiable inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, operators can demonstrate to government and nongovernmental organizations how greenhouse gas emissions change over time as a field ages. In addition, energy utilization and greenhouse gas emission information can be used to guide investments, in order to achieve the maximum energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions minimization per barrel produced. Applications ChevronTexaco's new system, the SANGEATM Emissions Estimating System, is an automated, electronic data management information system that is designed to gather monthly energy and greenhouse gas emissions data from worldwide exploration and production, refining and marketing, petrochemicals, transportation and coal activities. ChevronTexaco Corporation and its Chevron, Texaco and Caltex facilities enter data to calculate greenhouse gas emissions and energy utilization on a monthly basis. Energy and greenhouse gas emission estimates are reported to ChevronTexaco Corporation each quarter. Technical Contributions The SANGEATM Emissions Estimating System is now publicly available. ChevronTexaco is making the system available free of charge in order to promote standardization of methodologies, and to improve comparability of greenhouse gas inventory information across the petroleum industry worldwide. We believe that widespread use of the SANGEA(tm) software will help provide a standard methodology for our industry. The American Petroleum Institute and several petroleum companies around the world have requested review copies of the software system.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published guidelines for the development of national greenhouse gas-emissions inventories and recommendations for collecting data necessary to calculate greenhouse gas emissions. Many regional and local jurisdictions will be performing inventories of greenhouse gas emissions and estimating the benefits of mitigation strategies to reduce emissions. This article advocates the development of relational databases to calculate and store emissions estimates based on IPCC guidelines and quantities of precursors of greenhouse gases. Specific examples of tables and queries are used to illustrate calculation methods and formulae, the choice of database keys, and the choice of methods for joining tables to construct queries.

Recent emphasis on actions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has pushed many state departments of transportation (DOTs) to develop carbon accounting practices compatible with their current standard data collection and storage guidelines. Once accurate and reliable accounting of GHG emissions is established, strategies can be formed that could help mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of materials used by state DOTs. To date, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has not conducted comprehensive research on the embodied carbon within its construction material usage (i.e., upstream Scope 3 emissions inventory of procured materials) with most previous carbon accounting practices being focused on Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions (i.e., the carbon footprint of direct and indirect energy usage). This paper summarizes the results of a life cycle assessment on the agency-wide material procurements and construction operations that emit GHGs at WSDOT as a case study. This study uses several data sources from WSDOT in conjunction with publicly available life cycle emissions factor data to estimate GHG emissions attributed to the materials used to build and maintain roadways under WSDOT’s jurisdiction. Results indicate that upstream Scope 3 emissions for WSDOT as an agency is a significant contributor to its overall GHG emissions inventory. Specifically, between 2017 and 2022, this paper estimates an average annual upstream Scope 3 emissions of 310,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalents, which translates to 56% of the total annual GHG emissions including Scope 1 and 2 emissions.